Daily stories from Middletown's 366-Year History

1905: Death in Pretty Girl’s Bite

Savant’s Lecture Sends the Shivers Down Backs of Wesleyan Students.

Middletown, Conn., Oct. 13.–Prof. W. D. Miller, of the University of Berlin, sent shivers down the backs of students at Wesleyan when he announced in his lecture yesterday that the bite of a pretty girl would often bring a quicker and more horrible death than the bite of a serpent.

In a special study of the bacteria of the mouth he said that only a short time ago he experimented on a beautiful girl in Germany and found that an arrow dipped in saliva from her mouth would send its victim in death throes more terrible than one dipped in the venom of the most deadly snake.

Prof. Miller further said that dentists should always be careful when putting their fingers in the mouths of pretty girls that they do not scratch or wound their fingers on jagged teeth, for in most cases it means a horrible death. Neither should mothers and fathers allow babies to chew on their fingers, for fatal results are likely to come from it. The professor was of the opinion that, if this fact became known, the female sex could go about unmolested at all times provided they were not toothless.

From the Reading Times (Reading, Pennsylvania), Saturday, October 14, 1905.